


Negotiation

by AlchemyAlice



Series: The Hostage Trilogy [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-26
Updated: 2011-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:15:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlchemyAlice/pseuds/AlchemyAlice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which new bridges are built over a series of sleepless nights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Negotiation

The morning was pale and wan--an accurate portrayal of everything at the moment, really, including Cobb himself as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. He hadn’t slept, and at his age that took more of a toll than he was willing to admit. 

It didn’t dampen the nervous energy buzzing in the backs of his hands and in his chest, though.

He took the children to school, smiling at them and unable to match their energy as they bounced towards their classrooms. As he drove home, his phone whirred, and he glanced at the text as he pulled into the driveway.

 _1:46 PM,_  it read.  _Delta 417_.

He went inside, made himself scrambled eggs that he nearly burned, and waited.

At 12:30, he braved traffic to LAX.

As he drove, he felt the tension in his stomach rise to his throat. 

He hadn’t seen Arthur, not in person, since the inception. 

They had talked, obviously--mostly through email, though occasionally Cobb had made a point of calling, if only to check whether Arthur had changed his number.

For the first six months, Cobb had half-expected him to. He wouldn’t have blamed him. 

But instead, Arthur answered about once every three calls, and they’d talked, mostly about James and Phillipa, and Cobb’s teaching position at UCLA. Occasionally Arthur mentioned a job, or a city, or a difficult client, though not often. 

Cobb had tried to apologize once, early on, and Arthur had talked over him like he hadn’t heard. So he didn’t try again. They rehashed old conversations they’d shared whiskey bottles and Chinese takeout over instead.

Not once had Arthur been the one to call him first. This was the first time in two years.

In the light of day, Cobb didn’t really know what had possessed him to practically order Arthur to him in the middle of the night. As if he had that right anymore, or ever did in the first place.

He shook his head, and turned onto the off ramp. 

He parked in one of the complexes and made his way to arrivals, dodging trolleys and people with unwieldy bags. His eyes felt faintly grainy but clear, the briskness of autumn air doing much to keep him awake. Arthur’s flight was on time, so he hovered vaguely around the entrance, watching and pointedly ignoring the security guards. 

Two years, and he still got nervous around law enforcement. He snorted to himself.

Arthur emerged from customs looking the same, like time had mostly deigned to stop for him. His collar was slightly crooked from the flight, the top button left undone beneath his tie and pullover. His khakis were rumpled but presentable, as was his hair. 

He looked around once and found Cobb unerringly, stepping through the crowd without hesitation. It occurred to Cobb that he had no idea what was expected of him, or what he expected of Arthur. 

If he was honest with himself, he’d half expected Arthur not to show at all. But then again, Arthur would have texted ahead to tell him that.

Arthur stopped in front of him, expression neutral and not showing even a shadow of the previous night’s distress. “Cobb,” he acknowledged, and held out his hand.

Relieved at the cue, Cobb took it warmly, and then on impulse grasped Arthur’s shoulder as well. 

And  _there_  it was. The muscles beneath his hand were as tight as bridge cables, hard and unyielding. Cobb tightened his hand just slightly--not squeezing, just accepting. “Hi, Arthur,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”

Arthur’s eyes widened fractionally, for perhaps half a second. Then Cobb felt the shoulder soften, just slightly beneath his palm. Some of the tension in his own gut eased. 

“Come on, my car’s in the middle of nowhere.”

***

The children, unsurprisingly, squealed with delight at Arthur’s return when their carpool dropped them back at the house, and they immediately pulled him into the living room to interrogate him about his travels and to share stories of their schoolmates. Cobb let them take the lead, glad for their easy acceptance of Arthur back into the house. He’d managed to offer coffee without any mishaps, but Arthur seemed unwilling to do anything but small talk, and Cobb didn’t know where the hell he could start, or even if he should.

They both unwound fractionally as Phillipa began to run out of stories and James began to drop with exhaustion, so that by the time the children retreated to their room Cobb felt comfortable enough to take their place next to Arthur on the couch. “What do you want for dinner tonight?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” Arthur replied. “Have you learned to cook yet?”

Cobb leveled a look at him. “I’ll have you know that I have mastered the fine art of macaroni. Also spaghetti bolognese, and various other forms of pasta with their respective sauces.” He paused. “Also frozen pizzas, if you really don’t trust me.” 

“Pizza it is, then,” Arthur said.

“Bastard.”

Arthur smiled, but only slightly. 

The evening was quiet, and when it closed it took several hours for Cobb to finally sleep. 

***

He wasn’t asleep for long. 

“Cobb?”

He sat up before even opening his eyes, and then he squinted at the sliver of light from the door, and the figure it cast into silhouette. “Arthur,” he managed to croak. “What’s up?”

The shadow in the doorway was still for a second, and then Arthur said, “Nothing. Sorry. Go back to sleep.”

“Wait,” Cobb said, automatically. He pushed himself back to lean against the headboard. “It’s fine. Come in.”

Arthur seemed doubtful, but after another still pause he moved, barely needing to open the door further in order to slip inside before shutting it behind him. Cobb’s eyes adjusted to the darkness fairly quickly, in time to watch Arthur take measured steps forward and then stop at the dresser. Cobb could just barely see the outline of his face in gray and blue tones from the moonlight coming through the curtains. His frown lines cut deep shadows across his brow. 

Cobb exhaled very slowly, and then moved to turn on the bedside lamp. 

The click of it was even brighter than the light coming on in the silence, and Cobb watched Arthur flinch at it. “Hi,” he said simply. “Do you want to sit?”

Arthur grimaced very slightly, but then nodded. He barely settled, even as he lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress, his spine straight and legs taut. It would take a microsecond for him to be up and across the room, out the door. So Cobb kept himself as still as possible, except to flex his hand slightly.

He sort of hated that he was treating Arthur like a skittish animal, but he was at a loss as to what else to do. Mal had always been better at these things.

They sat in silence for a long minute, in which Arthur breathed shallowly and Cobb perhaps more so. This was new territory for both of them; even on his worst days after Mal, Cobb hadn’t gone to Arthur, preferring to drink alone until the night obliterated itself from memory. Now it was the middle of the night again, but the Atlantic didn’t stretch between them, and Cobb could feel Arthur’s body heat against his calf. 

He held an internal debate for a second, and then said, “Eames’s portrayal must have been very good.”

Arthur blinked slowly. “He’s watched you die before,” he said eventually. “And his memory is frighteningly accurate.”

Cobb nodded. 

He said, after a long moment, “If James had been born a girl, we would have named him Claire.”

Arthur looked sharply at him, something close to incredulity crossing his features. “Oh?”

“Mm. I’ve never told you that before, have I?”

Incredulity melted into something unreadable. “No,” Arthur said, more softly, “You haven’t.”

And then very carefully he drew his die from the pocket of his dark flannel pants, and rolled it on the floor. The clack of its plastic surfaces was sharp across the wood panelling.

“Are we dreaming?” Cobb asked, when it settled. 

Arthur leaned forward to retrieve the die, and shook his head. When he looked back at Cobb, there was something new in his expression, something assessing. “Thanks,” he said. 

And then he slipped out of the bedroom like he’d never been there.

Cobb turned out the light.

***

The next night, Cobb told him how he’d gotten the scar on the inside of his left arm (climbing a barbed wire fence in high school). The night after, he admitted that he’d drunk fruity white wine on dates with Mal for nearly a year before telling her that he hated it and only ever drank dry-as-bone reds. 

Arthur never moved from his strange perched position at the very edge of Cobb’s bed except to roll the die, and then re-pocket it.

The third night, he slipped inside the room and before Cobb could turn on the light, he said, “What happened in limbo?”

Cobb lowered his hand, and left the light off. 

As evenly as he could, he told the truth into the darkness.

When he finished, Arthur shifted. “You could have told me,” he said. “About the sedative.”

“You would have stopped me,” Cobb replied. 

“I’d have tried,” Arthur corrected. “And then I would have followed you when you decided to do it anyway.”

Cobb hesitated, and then said carefully, “Maybe I didn’t want you to have to consciously make that choice.”

Arthur moved again, and then it was Cobb’s knee that absorbed the faint heat of his proximity through the blankets. Cobb said, “I almost didn’t expect you to actually come here, you know.”

“Neither did I,” Arthur replied. “But. That was a bad night.”

“Yeah.” Cobb paused. “Is this helping?”

Arthur was silent for a long while, and then he said, “I think so. Maybe.”

Then his hand was on Cobb’s, covering it. 

They hadn’t had any physical contact since the handshake at the airport. Arthur's grip was warm and dry. Cobb barely had time to react before Arthur was gone, out the door and into the hall again, leaving a phantom residual heat on the edge of Cobb’s bed, and on the back of his hand. 

Cobb felt frozen against the headboard. He listened to the faint and distant click of Arthur closing the guest room door. 

He didn’t sleep until his hand went cold above the sheets.


End file.
